Patrick Henry was an American politician, planter and orator who declared to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): "Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.
Portrait by George Bagby Matthews after Thomas Sully, c. 1891
View of Rural Plains near Totopotomoy Creek in Virginia. Henry was reportedly married to Sarah Shelton in the parlor.
Patrick Henry Arguing the Parson's Cause by George Cooke
Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses (1851) by Peter F. Rothermel
The Virginia Conventions have been the assemblies of delegates elected for the purpose of establishing constitutions of fundamental law for the Commonwealth of Virginia superior to General Assembly legislation. Their constitutions and subsequent amendments span four centuries across the territory of modern-day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
The Virginia Constitutional Convention 1829–1830 met in Richmond, Virginia. A convention of three generations, the last gathering of Revolutionary era giants
Raleigh Tavern, Colonial Williamsburg First Virginia Convention met here, 1774
Peyton Randolph 1774, 1775
Edmund Pendleton 1776, 1788
